So, How Long Have You Been Native? is Alexis C. Bunten's firsthand
account of what it is like to work in the Alaska cultural tourism
industry. An Alaska Native and anthropologist, she spent two
seasons working for a tribally owned tourism business that markets
the Tlingit culture in Sitka. Bunten's narrative takes readers
through the summer tour season as she is hired and trained and
eventually becomes a guide. A multibillion-dollar worldwide
industry, cultural tourism provides one of the most ubiquitous
face-to-face interactions between peoples of different cultures and
is arguably one of the primary means by which knowledge about other
cultures is disseminated. Bunten goes beyond debates about who owns
Native culture and has the right to "sell" it to tourists. Through
a series of anecdotes, she examines issues such as how and why
Natives choose to sell their culture, the cutthroat politics of
business in a small town, how the cruise industry maintains its
bottom line, the impact of colonization on contemporary Native
peoples, the ways that traditional cultural values play a role in
everyday life for contemporary Alaska Natives, and how Indigenous
peoples are engaging in global enterprises on their own terms.
Bunten's bottom-up approach provides a fascinating and informative
look at the cultural tourism industry in Alaska.